


Love punishes when it forgives

by TheonlyDan



Category: Sharp Objects (TV)
Genre: Am I the only one who thinks that Elizabeth Perkins's voice is sexy, Angst with a happy ending (sort of), F/F, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23140990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonlyDan/pseuds/TheonlyDan
Summary: “Jackie, what’s the deal with you and Adora?”“Sometimes we’re friends and other times we aren’t, simple as that.”Or,The aftermath of Sharp Objects' final episode.
Relationships: Adora Crellin/Jackie O'Neill
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Love punishes when it forgives

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the poem collection Flying Fire by Tagore.

Love is like a ghost in the distance, ever-reached  
Travel through the night because there is no fear  
Alone but right behind until I watched you disappear

_—The War On Drugs_

***

Each summer Jackie swore it was hotter than the last. The air was stiff and stale, shadowing the efforts of the fans that hummed 24/7 in her household. The heat was cruel and unrelenting, like her days in Wind Gap.

After the late-morning shower, her armpits were already sweating before she can even set foot out of the bathroom. Jackie glanced at the person in the mirror: dark circles beneath her eyes, unhealthy complexion, pursed lips, and severe wrinkles. An unhappy, lifeless woman stared back at her.

Jackie looked away and made a beeline to her kitchen.

The flavor of her cocktails wasn’t improving—always too much liquor and sugar, but Jackie wasn’t picky (she’d just drink straight from the bottle anyway). She’d cling to anything that could give her that wonderful, heavenly buzz.

It was unhealthy and fucked up. Who wasn’t nowadays?

Reminiscing became the only highlight of her days. Jackie wasn’t vain nor did she wallow in regrets, but she was always after something out of her reach. Always wanting something she couldn’t have.

She shouldn’t want Camille to stay. She shouldn’t want Adora to apologize.

She shouldn’t want Adora Crellin.

But it was Camille who apologized first.

Jackie rushed to the hospital even if it was the last place she wanted to visit on earth. With harsh white lights that always made her feel like she’d no place to hide, a frog waiting to be dissected, the stench of bleach and sickness would assault her senses numb, then the smell would become an exoskeleton after she escaped.

As soon she caught wind of the arrest (it was a small town) she made it to Camille. In Wind Gap, booze was probably thicker than _blood_ and water. That was why people like Jackie and Camille in Wind Gap were lonely.

Camille put down the newspaper in soft rustling sounds as Jackie entered the ordinary ward. Camille and Amma were being moved here after their conditions were stabilized. Sitting up, Camille looked sickly and tiny in the hospital gown. The coloration that matched the grayish gown was the drape, now drawn between Amma and Camille, blocking Jackie from seeing the smallest Crellin. Jackie walked over but Camille stopped her.

“Amma’s still asleep.” Camille cleared her throat; her voice was weak but stronger than Jackie anticipated, “The doctors say she’s built up a tolerance but I think she’s still pretty shaken.”

“God, you poor young things.”

Jackie helped the younger woman to some water, guilty for the relief once she detected there were no accusations in Camille’s tone.

“Thanks for coming over.” Camille maneuvered with a toothy grin, “You are still so nice to me.”

Jackie sighed, “I’m not nice. Nice people, they don’t exist in Wind Gap.”

She took the vacant spot on the bed and sat by Camille. The bed was lumpy.

_You know why I care; I owe you the world._

Jackie’s hand twitched at the want to touch Camille’s.

Camille smiled, face gaunt and pale. Jackie would say she looked oddly spirited after losing and gaining a ton of blood, her sister traumatized, and mother cuffed for murder.

“Cheers to that.” Camille tilted her plastic cup with a wry smile, “I could really use a glass of your sours.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, and darling you know they taste just as bad as the rest of my mixes. How are you feelin’?”

Camille shrugged as she nursed the water.

“I probably look the way I smell, but I feel fine actually.”

She gave Jackie’s hand a light squeeze. Camille’s hand was cold.

“I know you’re just trying to make me worry less.” She reached out impulsively and tugged a strand of Camille’s hair behind her ear. The girl didn’t like to be pampered, but Jackie had to do it. “The detectives came bothering you yet?”

“Richard came briefly, said they’re going to charge Adora.”

The name tumbled off Camille’s tongue like she was pronouncing a foreign and unpleasant thing.

“Boy, what I’d pay to see when Billy arrested her. And Alan, too.”

Jackie muttered, loud enough to cover the beeping monitors for Camille to hear. Camille’s blue eyes narrowed with interest.

“Jackie, what’s the deal with you and Adora?”

“Sometimes we’re friends and other times we aren’t, simple as that.”

She lowered her head to avoid Camille’s suspicious stare.

“How about the rest who stays around? About Alan and Vickery?”

“Well well, look who’s the detective now.” Jackie retracted her hand and cracked her knuckles. Camille had outgrown a girl into a fine woman, enough to make Jackie nervous.

“Maybe someday I’ll tell you everything because it’s fuckin’ complicated. The moral of the story: whoever stays around Adora Crellin gets fucked.”

“And yet you still choose to.”

“Yeah.” Jackie cocked her head, refocusing on something beyond this space, “I’ve been…within her clutches, in a distance. Apparently it was not far enough.”

“Why? You love her?”

She snapped her gaze back to the gray-blues, and shifted uncomfortably.

“We are all attached at some level like puppets on strings.” Jackie threw her hands up dismissively. “Thank god _you_ got out when you had the chance. Almost everything about Wind Gap is toxic.’’ _Your mother is the most poisonous of all, and the tolerance you built for survival would become an addiction._

Camille waited for her to say more, but Jackie went silent. Camille took her chance to observe the older woman, the only person in Wind Gap who genuinely cared about her. Jackie had aged significantly since the last time Camille saw her, and she didn’t age well. Jackie’s pallid face had lost its youthful glow, and was replaced with hard lines and patches of alcohol-induced red.

_I got cysts, IC, IBS, and fibromyalgia, Oh, and hypochondria! I've been diagnosed, and undiagnosed, re-diagnosed, all that._

“Speaking of getting outta here, I think I should bring Amma with me to St. Lois when this blows over.”

Camille casually broke the silence. Jackie’s shoulders relaxed into a slight slouch.

“I hate for you to go, you’re such great company to an old lonely woman like me…so much vigor and youth…but I’ll send ya a housewarming card.”

Camille smirked, and said, “Just so you know if you forget, I’m not going to get mad and stop talking to you.”

“You sure ain’t one of the Crellins. Although you’re so like Adora in some places you’ve definitely outgrown all of the Preakers. If you stick around before heading to the city, I can tell you more about your father. Oh he was such a manly _man_ , the balls he had to have had left Adora with you like that—”

“Jackie, I’m sorry.”

Jackie blinked, not sure she was more taken aback by the apology or the fact that, Camille had moved on from having an absent father.

“The things I said last time…I shouldn’t have said you’re sick. It was unfair of me to judge you like that, you of all people in this godforsaken town you always have my best interest at heart.”

“Oh dear, but I _am_ sick.”

It was still a tremendous relief to hear Camille say that, and Jackie had always taken the power of sympathy too lightly. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Jackie felt the tears burning the brim of her vision. The sensation was unfamiliar because Jackie thought she was too numb to cry again.

She was closer to redemption with Camille’s kindness, but even if Jackie was forgiven, she would never forgive herself.

“No use crying over spilled milk, eh?”

Jackie murmured, then erupted with a small cackle. Camille knotted her brows and looked alarmed as ever; Jackie realized it was because she had never been so vulnerable in front of the girl.

But Death had its taste of Wind Gap and Jackie doubted the killing would stop here.

“You still have so much to live for, so there was no point…all the history we couldn’t change. The only thing that’s probably worthy to talk about is how much I love you. I’ve never had the chance to say that, but you’re always the daughter I couldn’t have. I didn’t know what to do but I should have had done _something_ , whether it was to protect you or help you or let you go, I—”

“Tell me all about it when you come to visit me and Amma, Ok?”

Soft words cut Jackie’s monologue to a stop. Camille slipped a hand to grasp the upper arm of the teary woman.

“Promise me you’ll come and visit.”

Jackie didn’t know what to say. Overwhelmed with gratitude, it was now that Jackie understood even with the evil and darkness wreaking havoc, the light had never gone out in Wind Gap because of love.

Camille wasn’t afraid when Jackie traveled her gaze over the damaged skin on her arm, nor did she flinch when the older woman gave her a warm, wounded look before she leaned in.

“Yes. Yes I’ll go this time.” Jackie mumbled in their embrace, “And Camille, you need to take a shower ASAP.”

***

Jackie didn’t change.

Silently, she watched as Adora pled _not guilty_ , and later being sentenced with a staggering amount of jail-time.

Jackie was seated in the first row of the hearing, between Alan and Vickery. Both men were sad, the spouse inattentive (as always) and the ex-lover rueful. Amma kept throwing nervous glances at Camille, who was standing grimly by the door; Jackie understood because she also wanted to flee. Jackie couldn’t stand the sight of Adora with a low, childlike ponytail, her frail back slanting in an angle only Jackie knew, that it meant Adora was in panic. Jackie couldn’t stand being a _bystander_ again, because her sleeves were also soaked in red.

After the court adjourned Jackie drank the evening into the night, then darkness to daybreak. She closed her sleepless eyes only because she dreaded sunlight.

Jackie didn’t change; she had no life and she was still a coward.

She did wear something other than muumuu that day when she visited Adora. Or, _tried_ to visit. Although bumping into Camille and Amma was a shot of confidence, her resolution liquefied the minute she saw Adora. Friends, lovers, families, acquaintances, strangers, foes…all of the identities combined were inadequate for them to each other.

Their eyes locked before Jackie could prepare herself. Like a helpless insect in amber, she froze in the azure of Adora’s eyes.

_Jackie. You came._

The momentum that freed her from that enigmatic stare not only sprung her out of her trance. Before Jackie knew it, she was walking out. A sharp ache struck as her eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness. The sudden heat, movement, and light caused twinges to break out in her temples.

Or maybe the sight of Adora reminded Jackie about _pain_.

Images of Beverly flashed by her mind as she turned the AC on in her car. Jackie distantly thought, maybe it was because the first time she had sex with Bev, the air conditioner in her house was broken with strange buzzing sounds.

Beverly was her solace when Jackie’s hopes were crushed one by one (the big ugly stamps that said ‘Access: _denied’_ ). The matriarch, who happened to be the person whom Jackie cared the most, plucked the nurse from the hospital after she found out about their dalliance.

Queens were never happy to share, nor did they tolerate betrayal.

Adora—the heart of secrets—was the ache in Jackie; the secrets had taken a toll on those who carried them, but Adora was too selfish for other people’s ways of coping.

Jackie was neither allowed nor prepared for the secrets to see the light. Band-Aid-Beverly was temporary and so was everything else. It all dawned on Jackie as she stared dumbly at the flask, forgetting why she took it out in the first place.

Jackie was chained from closure, because she’d yet to pay the price to live in freedom.

***

“Look who’s got here so soon. Just like us back in the ol’ days, huh?”

Vickery greeted Jackie gruffly as she stepped out of her car. His faded uniform and badge made him look like a man-child—some ill-equipped knight trying too hard to protect and serve. Vickery had lost his purpose and let his sword be taken away by his princess, then got a stab on the back. He had it coming.

Jackie never really hated him. Standing on the driveway, she only felt sorry for him, now he’d used up the last of privileged attention.

“Well hello to you too, Billy-boy.” Vickery’s stiff upper lip twitched. Jackie cocked her head like an innocent child, “Are we going to have that conversation I’ve been owing you?”

“You owe me nothing.”

He lowered his voice to a growl and Jackie scoffed to herself. She forced herself to drop the observations, that Vickery had been loitering around (the dampened area of the older man’s chest and armpit indicated he’d been out for a while) Adora’s house after her release this morning.

“G’day. You tell Joce I said hi.”

Jackie nodded curtly at Vickery and started to walk away. He was visibly shocked at her uncharacteristic wordlessness. Truth be told, she was never fond of rivaling the chief. They were caught on the same spider web.

“Jackie.” She stopped, two feet less to the stairs leading to the front porch. She turned around and raised her brow at Vickery, who was scuffing his boots on the ground with an expression gloomier than the weather. The sky loomed low and Jackie could practically taste the rain in the air.

“You take good care of her, Jackie.”

“Don’t I always?”

***

Alan’s absence disgusted Jackie almost as much as his existence. The divorce papers were delivered while Adora was still in prison, along with the news that Gayla was being let go of—a nice way of putting it—so Jackie was already expecting an empty house as she looked through the screen door. It was disheartening that the most loyal of all was scared away, because even Gayla couldn’t stand how her master was accountable for such brutality.

In the dim light, Adora was nowhere in sight. The interior of the mansion didn’t change at all, or Jackie was simply distracted by her thoughts. She was never convinced that Adora was responsible for killing those girls; the actions required rage and spite. Adora could never act upon those emotions to harm little girls.

Even if she did, it was tender and smooth, out of sickly affection.

Camille would be in town soon to attend another hearing. _Juvenile court._

It sent shivers down Jackie’s spine every time she thought about Amma. The devil hid in the sweetest face of an angel, and the more she not thought about the little girl the more she dreamt about the Crellins.

A loud, repressed thunder strike as a prelude to the storm, prompting Jackie to pushed open the door. The house was hostile because she disturbed the air as she ventured further into the house, hoping and dreading the sight of a certain woman. The house was staggeringly vacant, and was too shadowy to persuade Jackie it used to be in utmost care. With no destination in mind, she walked over to the kitchen.

“Jackie.”

Jackie’s heart jumped to her mouth at the familiar whispery voice. She turned around like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

There stood Adora, weak and pale like she will be gone within a breath, yet with a presence so strong that she was omniscient.

Celestial.

“Hey, Adora.”

Jackie walked over carefully, her normal sway gone. The last time she was this nervous was her first dance with Timothy Henderson in 9th grade. Adora’s face was incomprehensible, and she was elegantly dressed in a snowy blouse and knee-length skirt. Everything about her was impeccable as usual.

Only that everything had changed. Jackie couldn’t look away from Adora, and the blonde’s gaze didn’t waver. Adora lost everything that meant something in the past few weeks, and Jackie thought maybe the harm was to grave for her to doing anything.

Another thunder rumbled from outside, making the silence unbearable.

“I saw the chief before I came in, and boy was he sweatin’.”

Jackie offered dumbly as she monitored Adora’s reaction. They were in the living room, with a polite distance between that made Jackie want to cry. All this effort…all those secrets in the palm of her hands that led her to Adora, yet now Jackie stood immobile.

She was never free because Adora was the price she had to pay. Jackie’s frivolous fling with Beverly brought herself an exile, a vengeful move from Adora when she chose Vickery to care for, to have a new pawn since Jackie was too hard to control.

Jackie looked away.

“You came to visit.” Adora’s voice was almost musical, soft and breathy, “But why?”

“Can’t an old friend stop by? You’re not—”

“I mean,” Adora cut in impatiently, and that somehow soothed Jackie, “That day, after my girls came and visit me. You fled.”

Jackie observed the blonde’s darkened expression. It was painful for her even to mention her daughters, now that in Adora’s standard, they were all gone.

“I suppose I wasn’t thinking clearly. Had a little bourbon that morning, with a headache that if I could shoot my husband dead to kill it I will.”

Jackie stopped talking because Adora had closed her eyes with displeasure; she knew Jackie was lying—they’d known each other for decades. Even if people mature some parts of them never change.

“I walked away because I was afraid.”

Adora opened her eyes with bemusement. Jackie’s tone was bland but it was an honest reply. They were codependent, and being candid could cause disruption. Who broke the vicious cycle would take the fall—in that case, Jackie now was crawling with bruises all over her soul, back to Adora.

And who was better at nursing sickness than Adora?

“So now you here because you’re what, _atoning_ or something? I don’t need any more pity-party. The folks were already throwing those _looks_ —”

Jackie took a step forward and leaned in, knocking the air out of Adora’s lungs. She didn’t care if Adora hated her for that unrequited sentiment. Their lips bumped into each other’s brusquely, then Adora shoved her away. Jackie felt something roared to life in the pit of her stomach.

“What do you think you are doing! That’s highly inappropriate!”

_Then tell me you don’t need me._

Jackie swallowed those words and searched Adora’s eyes. They were sparkling in the darker room, ice-hot with the sapphire color of the hottest part of a flame. The rest of her expression was shadowed.

It sounded like a forced complaint, a half-hearted scold.

The fact that she didn’t yell at Jackie to get off from her property explained enough, but this time, Jackie would no longer settle for discretion. Jackie wanted to move on, with or without Adora.

Lips still stinging for their previous contact, Jackie was bombarded with second thoughts: what if Adora was all she needed?

Adora knew the kiss was more a question than a crime of passion. Her baby-blues reminded Jackie the day when Adora was in court, frightened and unbelievably docile.

“You need me.” Jackie said quietly and reached out an unsteady hand to touch the ghost in her dreams, “We’ve become strangers, and we punish ourselves in the wrong way. Even if I’m here because I want to make amendments, you gonna push me away again?”

Adora didn’t shy away; she only exhaled inaudibly when Jackie touched her cheek, and Jackie couldn’t tell if Adora was bewildered or relieved. The sky cracked this time, the voice violent in their ears, but Jackie’s hand was firm and gentle as she cleaned the residual lipstick off of Adora’s lips.

Soft. Adora Crellin felt soft and harmless only to Jackie.

Together as a unit, they were the only solace left in Wind Gap. The rules had changed without warning, stripping Adora away from the privilege to live in the past, and she was never ready even if she was conscious of the truth.

It took too long for a response and Jackie doubted she would get the answer she wanted. A minute bled by after her hand left Adora’s skin, and there was only rain in their background, with gushes of wind that couldn’t dismantle the tension.

Adora was haunted with a strong, unfocused look as if she was conflicted, and Jackie thought she saw the enigmatic Adora before Marian died, _her_ Adora when they were in high school, the ruler of the only business in town, the sick woman who poisoned her own children and raised a poisonous one.

None of the faces she saw wanted Jackie to stay, so Jackie turned around and left. Adora didn’t call for her.

It was cathartic as the water hit Jackie’s skin, cool and ruthless but necessary. She tried to remember the last time she went out into the rain, and it occurred to her she’d never done this before. Spontaneity was rarely bestowed on Jackie, and from now on she decided she would be entitled to choosing.

When Jackie was almost halfway to her car, she thought she heard Adora’s shout. She laughed to herself. What a ludicrous notion, as if Adora would ever try something wild—

“Jackie! Goddamn it!”

Jackie stopped dead and glanced backward. A blond that looked suspiciously like Adora was bare-foot with no umbrella, approaching Jackie like an apparition. In amazement, Jackie turned around and felt distinctively that her own boots were drenched.

Adora’s blond hair was disheveled and so was her makeup. Her cream-colored blouse clung to her body, revealing the outline of her bra and her figure, which was another surprise for Jackie. Adora had lost significant weight in her three-week incarceration.

When she spoke, it was hushed and sharp. Jackie had to step closer to hear better. Another thunder slashed though the sky; more rain seemed to fall from its gash.

“We can’t go back. I…I mean we need to go back to the house now! This is insane! But we can’t. I can’t. What you want from me is impossible.”

Adora spluttered, chest heaving, her eyes darting away from Jackie’s face to her car, and toward the black gate for exit. Jackie almost wanted to reach for Adora’s shoulders, to steady her and offer comfort like nothing had happened between them.

Instead, Jackie merely said, “I know.”

Adora’s gaze fell upon her. For a moment Jackie thought of reclaiming something mystic, but the ecstasy was quickly replaced by a deep, poignant feeling when she stared into in Adora’s eyes; despite their transparency, Jackie knew the eternal fog cloaking over might never be unveiled. The ethereal pattern of the iris against the turquoise, marked Adora an entity both life-consuming and distant.

Calculated doses of distorted kindness were a promise than a threat; it took one’s sickness to cure another, and Jackie had never been so sure of what she would get herself into.

“Let’s go home.”

And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> https://youtu.be/aMWh-netJCw?t=1738 Oops, if you say so...  
> The link is an interview of the Sharp Objects' cast, and you should all check out the part where Patty and Elizabeth discuss Jackie/Adora (wink  
> Happy White Day! Comments and kudos are welcomed~


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